Disclosure
Allebest: Chess.com instituted a firm rule against paid user acquisition
“We'd totally been burned on, on paid acquisition, and we pretty much made You know, a very firm rule that we weren't going to do paid acquisition. And so instead we said, we're going to take any money that we have and we're going to put it into content because…”
Disclosure
Allebest set early salaries by asking candidates what they needed to live
“I would just say to them, Hey, how much money do you need to do this job? And if we can make that, we'll do it. And if not, I'll let you know, but really, what do you need to do this? Because I'm not going to make you an offer. Cause I don't know your life. I …”
Assertion Not publicly verifiable
Allebest forced exiting investors to pool tens of millions for staff
“When our PokerStars investor, you know, the Sheinberg family, when they exited to GA, I said, I am going to block this transaction as hard as I can, unless We set aside a huge percentage comparatively of the sale. Everybody is going to pay. I think it was seve…”
Insight
Allebest: Raising venture capital psychologically feels like earning revenue for founders
“I think raising money feels a lot like earning money. It's a self-validation.”
Insight
Allebest: Exact-match domains were essential for web startups, unlike today
“Ridiculously large role, especially at the beginning and the beginning sets the tone for later. Now, I mean, in today's world, if we hadn't done it, if you, would you have to start on chess.com? Probably not, but given the time that we started and how it worke…”
Assertion Supported
Allebest: COVID and The Queen's Gambit 5xed Chess.com overnight
“When COVID came and the Queen's Gambit hit and our numbers like five X overnight, it grew the game of chess five X.”
Assertion Supported
Allebest: VCs including Peter Thiel rejected Chess.com for five years
“We tried for like the first Five years to raise money. We tried many times. We tried angels. We tried, I met Peter Thiel. I went, I met a bunch of different angels. I went up and down. I used all my connections up and down Silicon, you know, Sand Hill road to …”
Opinion
Allebest: Silicon Valley wrongly believed the chess market was capped at $10M
“Well, I mean, now knowing what I know, I mean, chess is a much bigger market. I don't think I did anything wrong. I think everybody was wrong. I think consensus, including from me, was that chess was too small, and so why would you invest in a business that yo…”
Assertion Supported
Allebest: Short-form video completely drove Chess.com's latest growth wave
“Our most recent wave was Completely driven off of short forms, whether it's YouTube shorts, Instagram, you know stuff or reels or, you know, TikTok. It is totally driven.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Allebest: Queen's Gambit subscribers converted at higher rates but retained worse
“They subscribed at a higher rate, but then retained at a lower rate, to your point. And that kind of, we swallowed that, but it's not like it went up and back down. It went up and stayed up significantly. So yes, it was net massive growth, but yes, they later …”
Disclosure
Allebest: PokerStars founder Esai Scheinberg acquired over 20% of Chess.com
“His name is Esai Scheinberg, founder of PokerStars. He loves chess. He wants to meet you. I meet with him. He's like, hey, I want to buy in. I want 50% of the company. We're like, get out of here. We're like, no chance, no way. And so, and he's like, okay, I'l…”
Disclosure
Allebest: Chess.com's General Atlantic deal was 100% secondary equity
“That's when we met GA, but again, it was to buy out existing equity. It was not to raise money. There was no primary money put in whatsoever. It was all just buying founders' equity and equal ownership.”
Disclosure
Allebest regrets selling equity to Chess.com's first investor
“Totally. Every day. Every day I think about it. I have so few regrets in life, but that is one.”
Insight
Allebest: Geographic hiring constraints shrink talent pools and inflate compensation
“First of all, talent is all over the world. And if you are geographically confined on talent, you have a smaller hiring pool and you are now competing in ways, you know, that are hard. It's hard to compete against these massive dangled comp packages in certain…”
Insight
Allebest: Remote work removes performative behavior and drives employee loyalty
“They don't feel trapped in the office. They don't feel like they have to show up early to do FaceTime. They don't feel like they have to be the last one to leave. They don't have to pretend like they're busy. It's so life enabling to them that they're grateful…”
Opinion
Allebest: Investor returns are disproportionate to value created by workers
“Look at the people who invest in there in the finance industry and look at the, where the value flows versus where the work is being done. And it's just disproportionate.”
Disclosure
Allebest: Chess.com prioritized immediate monetization over typical Silicon Valley spending
“Everything I saw going on in Silicon Valley was like spend, spend, spend. We did the opposite. We thought about monetizing immediately.”
Insight
Allebest: Directness requires building relationship credit through positive interactions
“It's not an either, or it's not like be nice and then don't be direct. It's like you can be both. And I think a lot of it has to do with like the number of deposits and withdrawals you make in any relationship. And so it's like your bank account. So you need t…”
Assertion Not publicly verifiable
Allebest bought the Chess.com domain for $56,000 in a bankruptcy auction
“56,000 dollars.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Allebest: Winning first chess game doubles or triples user retention
“It pains me to say this, but somebody who wins their first game of chess is two to three times more likely to stay around than someone who loses their first game.”
Prediction Held up
Allebest: Chess.com pushes new users to play coach bots first
“What we're trying to do is push people toward not playing a person first, but knowingly playing a coach bot personality where they will win and feel good But not to just throw them in the pool of players against other people where there's a fifty-fifty chance …”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Allebest: Chess.com historically operated without metrics-driven management
“We are, we have not historically been a metrics-driven business. We are, we've been a heart and mission and chess-driven business.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Allebest outlines Chess.com daily user engagement across playing, puzzles, and lessons
“You know, it's actually a strangely low number, but it's like, 60% of our active users come in on a day and play. Half of them will do a, will do puzzles. So half of that number will do puzzles, and then half of that number again will do lessons. Game review i…”
Assertion Supported
Allebest: Chess.com has 150M+ registered members and 15M weekly active users
“So just, we could say we've got about a 150, a little over a 150, a hundred and sixty million registered members. We have Take a weekly active users is probably around 10% of that. Around fifteen million. About 10% of that are active subscribers.”
